STALKER: A Storm of Steel
by NVA-aboo
Summary: It is the year 2015AD / 276AC and in the wake of a massive Psi-Emission, Portals start opening between the Zone and Westeros. As these distant Worlds meet, greater forces begin to stir and take notice. Chernobyl has become a bridgehead and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen finds himself thrust into the middle of a battle for the future of his world.


Let me please introduce this story with a quick Author's Note.

I have been writing fanfiction for a while now and finally developed my skills to a point where I feel confident that my writing is good enough not to make me cringe when I reread it in a few years. I'm probably wrong, but I'll stay optimistic for now. :) Although I am kinda trying to have a clean break from my old work, a lesson I have learned is about Editing and Publishing. In the past, almost all of my projects never went to completion because of a variety of factors and I feel quite guilty for letting down any fans they might have had. Thus, I am making myself a policy now: I will make sure that any story I publish is finished!

However... I do sometimes struggle with motivation and I feel like building some interest in advance is a good way to keep my feet to the fire, make sure I make steady progress. So, I decided to do this: I will publish the Prologue of this story as a Teaser. Once I am finished with writing, editing and rewriting this story until I am confident in it, I will publish it episodically one Chapter a week. In terms of when that release is to be expected... Probably in a year, if I'm feeling optimistic. I take a long time to write. I've been working on this for a year and have only a few Chapters done.

So, since the _proper_ release is still a long way off and this Prologue is intentionally ambiguous, please allow me to give a more proper story-description than that which the wordcount for the formal one allows.

I am a big fan of First Contact narratives, it is a love I developed from reading Mass Effect Crossovers. It makes for fascinating interactions and I appreciate stories who are ready to indulge in the details of such scenarios, so you can expect that here. Sometimes these types of stories go a bit too much in the direction of indulging power-fantasies on a civilisational level and this is something I plan to experiment with, but try to make it more interesting than gratuitous curb-stomping.

So, why did I choose these two settings for this? Well, the idea came to me kinda randomly while playing STALKER: Anomaly and a few other Call of Chernobyl derived standalone Mods. I won't be going into the details, but I really like that A Song of Ice and Fire often feels more like science fiction despite being Fantasy at it's core. And STALKER often feels like a Fantasy story wearing the aesthetics of a grounded Science-Fiction setting. I feel like there is a fascinating inverted parallel in those two settings and that they are ideal to finally write a story-concept that has been fascinating me for a while.

This story is also sort of a spiritual successor to an old story of mine that actually got somewhat popular, but I didn't manage to finish because of a variety of issues, both internal and external to the text itself.

But in terms of concrete story, what I am planning is that the "Magic" of the Zone opens up Portal-Anomalies into Westeros and First Contact is made. However, this meeting has consequences. The Zone has always been the subject and result of ruthless political scheming that doesn't fall short of Westeros in comparison. As knowledge of the Portals and the New World on the other side leaks out, the forces already seeking to gain control of the Zone's Power begin making preperations to settle the issue by any means neccessary. In Westeros, the First Contact throws wrenches into everyone's schemes, but also creates new opportunities in the disruption. Change is coming. A succession-crisis had been brewing for years and it looked to be almost over with the birth of a healty second Prince, but it is far from settled.

And while the political schemes take shape, Prince Rhaegar Targaryen sees the ominous shadows of a past Apocalypse heralding it's nearing return. Working with scattered and unreliable fragments of old Prophecy, he is facing the daunting task of figuring out what needs to be done to stop it, whatever the cost. When portals to Earth open, he is one of the few who is wondering what the implications are on prophesy and magic. The future of all Planetos might depend on it, for surely powers more ancient than the Iron Throne, the CIS, NATO, the Komintern or the Republic of Ukraine are pursuing their own plans.

Exited? I hope I won't let you keep waiting as long as George RR Martin! ***dabs***

* * *

"We should return to base soon.", Dafna remarked as the Sun slowly started hiding behind the leaves of the trees. "Fucking Duty. Talk a big game and don't show up for the shift..."

Florian nodded carefully, as they watched the rays of the sun's rays shine through the red stained leaves of Trees that should have died long ago, yet lived still.  
Patrols along the Red Forest were always a painful assignment. None of Freedom's members wanted to do it, but occasionally Lukash had to assign a few people. Nobody liked taking orders, but if they didn't do it, then they'd be handing a political gift to Duty.

"I still want to get to that Artifact, the one Meadow told me about.", Florian insisted. A friend of his told him that somewhere, a little bit into the Red Forest proper, he had seen a Fireball stuffed into a dead oak. According to him, he could find it because it glimmered like the tree had swallowed a little Sun to become it's heart. "Who knows how long it'll take until someone else finds it."

Dafna looked out into the Red Forest sceptically. "You know how strong the Radiation is?", she asked and patted her suit with her left hand. "A thin layer of lead won't protect you in there."

They had spent most of the Day at the Barrier and were doing the last westward sweep along the Forest to make sure no Monolith Scouts would slip out of there. The hills were rather steep and the two green-clad fighters had to be very careful with their steps on the wet grass.  
"I'll take that risk. You heard how valuable a Fireball is outside of the Zone? I could live forever off that Money.", he told her, hoping she'd come along.

"If you find a seller yourself. And if you plan to only eat Porridge the rest of your life.", she replied with a dry, cute laugh. Florian didn't mind her snarky reply, that voice of her's was always sweet to hear in this creepy place. There were so few women in the Zone, it really made him realise how pleasant it was to just listen to them sometimes. He smiled melancholically to himself as that thought crossed his mind.

"We could split the Money, you know...", he offered, but Dafna shrugged. "If we miss rendevous with the Night-Shift because of this, Lukash is probably going to skin us."

They were getting close to the Mi-24 that crashed near the Barrier long ago and they held a healthy distance from it. Nobody knew why the Psi-Field around it existed, but everyone knew to keep a healthy distance from it.  
Dafna paused for a moment and slung her K98 over her back. Then, she pulled out a Joint from one of her waterproof pockets. When she noticed her Matchbox was empty, she asked: "Got a light, Apollo?"

Florian had his lighter in hand before she even asked. He chivalrously lit it for her and in exchange, she let him take the second draw.  
The Weed tasted much better than cigarettes and it quickly soothed that insufferable droning in the head that one felt from being this close to the Brain-Scorcher. They were outside the lethal Zone, but all the defensive positions that needed to be manned were still in the area where it was supremely unpleasant. That's why they needed frequent shift-changes, Psy-Blockers and whatever other soothing Drugs they could get when guarding the Barrier. It was lucky that Skinflint had the contacts to bring in the good stuff, likely from the same sources as he got Freedom their high-quality western weapons, uniforms and cigarettes.

After a few moments, the Weed started working and the oppressive presence of the Brain Scorcher started fading. It likely didn't actually shield them from it, but it at least numbed them from the feelings.

Apollo was both Florian's codename and his real one, amusingly. _Florian Appolinary_ was his birth-name, but by coincidence it caught up with him in the Zone as well. His little sister had drawn him a picture before he left home, a smiley-faced sun wearing black shades. It was so cute that he had wrapped it in plastic and taped it to the side of his helmet. People in the zone always went by some made up nickname and before he could pick one for himself, his colleagues had started calling him "Apollo". And he still wasn't sure if it was because of the crudely drawn sun, or a sneaky way to tease him about the way he looked at Dafna sometimes...  
And the worst thing was that he wasn't sure how _she_ interpreted it. He was too much of a chicken to just ask her out, though. Sometimes he told himself a relationship would be too weird in such a place, but he wasn't even sure if that wasn't him just rationalising his cowardice to just make the first step.

They went up and down the slopes of the area's hills, constantly scanning for the white-grey camo of Monolith-Uniforms. Being stoned was both a blessing and curse as the Light dimmed behind the trees. They could see much clearer than usual with the dimming light, but Florian was not sure how well he could fight. Every time he almost slipped on the dewy grass was a reminder that Marijuana made him clumsy as a Clown.

However, he could not deny that the Zone looked much more beautiful as well. The way the sun sank behind the trees of the Red Forest was an awe-inspiring sight. Orange rays shone past the trees, making the red-stained leaves glimmer with the sun's light inside them and letting the branches appear almost black-burned in contrast with the fiery sunset.  
Dafna looked beautiful as well. The last rays of light were making the auburn hair that flowed from under her helmet glimmer in a lush red. Despite a short cut being more practical, she was too proud to trim her mane and Apollo didn't mind. As she led the way, he admired the way her hair flowed down onto the camouflaged-patterned poncho she wore over her armour to avoid getting soaked by spring-rains.

Spring Rains... It was surreal how the Red Forest seemed to resist the seasons. It was an aspect of the Zone that dated back to the very first accident in 1986. The masses of radiation had killed the Trees and stained their leaves red until they fell off. But the creation of the Zone seemed to have miraculously prompted these Red Leaves to sprout again, as if the Trees were in a horrific state of undeath, like the Zombies who rose from the wake of Blowouts. That was how they were most of the year, horrific skeletons burnt in place as a reminder to the horrors of what happened when the wrath of Nuclear Energy was unleashed.  
But in Winter, Apollo freshly remembered, the Red Forest was even more eerie. Virgin Snows covered the ground, the dead bark was armoured in ice and the leaves yet remained, looking like bloody hands against the white.

Suddenly, Dafna stopped. She unslung her rifle and aimed at something in the distance. Florian knelt down and followed the example. "Contacts?", he asked.  
She didn't answer for a moment, staring out into the forest. In the red-tinted light of the sunset, the two were well concealed in their flecktarn. Dafna's poncho looked like a cloak of leaves and acorns, her K98k sticking out towards the dark woods like a spear.  
Through the red-dot sight of his M16, Apollo could see nothing. However, the dot also felt blindingly bright. As the natural light around them became dimmer, the contrast turned from a colourful ember to a glowing ball of fire whose glow blocked his sight.  
He never had earned enough money to afford Night-Vision Googles, so he usually had to rely on other methods. Sometimes the Moon was bright enough to allow you to see the shape of the Landscape and you could always use a Flashlight... And give Monolith Snipers something bright to aim at. Being out at Night was a bad idea all around.  
"I'm not sure.", Dafna whispered, her hushed voice almost blending into the rustling of leaves in the wind. She sounded a bit scared, but Florian could hardly blame her for that. If there were any Bloodsuckers stalking through the night, they were dead already.  
They waited for a moment, expecting a hail of tracer-bullets to burst from the darkness, but nothing came. The serenity of the nature around them felt almost mocking in it's contrast to their paranoia.

"Lets hurry to the Gate, maybe we can intercept them there.", Dafna finally suggested. "Farshiltn, I hope they have Night Vision."  
"We can always make a Campfire.", Apollo suggested and his partner laughed sweetly.  
"I hope you brought a shovel to make foxholes, then. I've been on some Night Patrols before and Mutans are like Moths sometimes. When you light a fire, be ready for a fight. And I've heard Monolith has been experimenting with Mortars recently... I'd rather fight in the darkness.", she told him. "I have good eyes, trust me."

_"If you knew..."_, Florian thought. He loved their green colour. The light of the Zone was often unkind to them, making them look like moss, but when the sun caught them just right they looked like glimmering Jade.

They marched towards the old gate, carefully watching their steps and the shape of the landscape, trying to spot any suspicious movement or silhuettes.  
As they got closer to their goal, they tried to remember where exactly the highly irradiated spots were. It was not healthy to wait until the Geiger-Counter was going crazy already. Just living in the Zone drastically shortened your life-expectancy, but there were areas that would kill you in minutes. Dying of Radiation-Poisoning was horrific and Florian knew he'd rather eat a bullet than endure that.  
Other patrols, clad in SEVA-Suits, had occasionally marked the most dangerous Zones to make sure undergeared STALKER's didn't stumble into them, but you couldn't see the markings in the darkness.

After 10 Minutes of a very careful and slow climb up the slope of the hill, they finally reached the rusting gate that led to the secondary Road into the Red Forest. Monolith usually came from the exit called "The Barrier". It was their safest path from their stronghold at the Brain-Scorcher, despite leading into a chokepoint. However, it was not the only exit from that cursed forest.  
The Gate in front of the two Freedomers led onto a road to Limansk that came near the eastern edge of the Red Forest and occasionally some Monolith Scout squeezed through. However, that was rare. The western road was said to be the only safe route, at least in that brief time after the Marked One had deactivated the Brain Scorcher. While the Eastern Route was not impenetrable, any sane person stayed the fuck away from it anyways. The worst part of the Red Forest had a reputation for being cursed and that was quite literal. It was a maze of Anomalies and Radiation, with Chimeras preying on anything that dared to enter.

**"Otryad Anna, to Svodboda Patrul'nyy-4, do you hear us?"**, the radio on Apollo's vest suddenly blared and he felt his heart cramp like it was about to have a stroke. Thank God, he had smoked some Weed to calm his nerves.  
"We hear you.", he replied over Radio. "Loud an clear." _A bit too much so_, he thought.

"Apologies for the delay, the tunnel messed with our Radio. We're at the bridge to Limansk, coming through to you now. Everything alright there?", the cheerful voice of a young man answered. His accent sounded Belarussian, but only slightly. It was fluent Ukrainian, but there were subtle deviations in pronounciation. Florian came from Poland, near the eastern border, so he recognised subtleties like that.

"We're not equipped for a night-shift, can't see shit.", he answered honestly. "We might need an escort back to base."  
There was a moment of silence, probably private discussion, then the Duty Soldier on the other end answered: "Sure, we'll bring you home." Surprisingly, there was no mockery in his tone and Apollo appreciated that. It had been a while since the Ceasefire between their Factions had begun, but that did not mean they liked each other or didn't compete.

"Let's go intercept them.", Dafna suddenly proposed. "It's probably safer than sitting out here."  
She gave him a friendly pat on the back and said: "Maybe we'll even find your Fireball." Her tone was sweet and cordial as she said that. Apollo smiled at her, though the darkness likely swallowed the gesture.  
"Thanks.", he replied. "I don't want to pressure you on helping me with this, but I can use some assistance."  
Florian almost mentioned that he needed to find this Artifact to support his family back home, but he intended to practice what he preached. Bringing up the reason would just be manipulative by way of pity.  
Still, it wrenched on his heart how his Grandparents had served their country to the best of their abilities when they could, only to be abandoned now in their time of need. It was not just a Tragedy, it was an Injustice. But Florian was not above taking matters into his own hands to make sure the bills were paid. He may be sacraficing decades of his own life by becoming a Stalker, but it was better than having Grandma work until she dropped dead.

They slipped through the tattered fence next to the Gate and strolled down the road. With Trees to either side of them, they finally felt comfortable activating their flashlights.  
However, that did not wholly cure them of their nervosity. Their eyes had adjusted a little to the darkness before and now that they were spoiled with light again, a cramped tunnel-vision set in.  
Around them, the sounds of night were echoing. The howling of blind Wolves, the chirping of crickets, the rustling of leaves, the distant droning of the Brain-Scorcher and the whole range of queer sounds that Anomalies made.  
And, of course, Gunfire. In the Zone, there was always someone shooting in the distance. But after a while, the sounds of combat just faded into the ambient noise unless it was close enough to be an imminent danger. Florian was not a soldier like his Grandpa, but it disturbed him how quickly he got used to the violence all around him.

The walk into the Forest was unnerving. Here, the Oaks were still lively and green. The mysterious ways of the Zone seemed to have shielded those from the Radiation to a degree, but Apollo knew that they were getting closer to the infamous _Red_ Forest, one of the great warning-monuments to the dangers of Nuclear Energy. Florian never quite understood why a lot of those rich Hipsters in the cities at home were so enthusiastic about the Green-Movement, but after living in Chernobyl for a while, he had begun to share their horror at what had happened here. It felt like Nuclear Science was a Box of Pandora that had been opened. Scientists swore that the mysterious Second Accident and emergence of what seemed like Magic in Chernobyl could have had nothing to do with Radiation, but Apollo felt like Humanity was still oblivious to the scale of what they had discovered. Maybe it was irrational of him, but he felt like this Zone just _must_ have been the seed of the first accident blooming into a strange fruit.

When they laid eyes on the border to the Red Forest, the two Stalkers shuddered. Where the fading beams of their flashlights hit the trees in the distance, the woods looked sickly orange.  
As they got closer, it became appearent that the division between the living and the dead Trees went quite precisely along a little wall. It was the type that one would use for an allotment or large garden. Or a cemetary.  
And at the metal gate, a figure in black armour was wrapping a bike-lock chain around the bars.

From a Bus-Station at the right side of the Road, another Duty-Soldier emerged. He was wearing some expensive assault-armour that looked like repainted army-stock. To Apollo's surprise, he waved at them.  
"Good evening, Comrades.", he greeted them cheerfully. From the shadow of the concrete-shelter, his squadmates emerged. Most wore Duty's standard protective suit. One of them wore a fucking **Nosorog** Exoskeleton. With every step that man took, the ground sublty vibrated as roughly 100 kilograms of Steel, Titanium, Kevlar and some more Steel gently trampled over the ground.  
_What the fuck had they been doing out there?_

"Hello.", Dafna replied politely, but audibly weary. However, that might have just been her yiddish accent. "You're late.", she noted.

The man tilted his head to the side a little, communicating his embarrasment. "Sorry about that.", he told them. "We got held up."  
Behind him, the man in the thick suit of power-armour scoffed under his thick metal-helmet.  
"Too busy killing Monolith.", he added with a booming voice, boasting in a manner that made Florian roll his eyes in the privacy of darkness. Though, to his credit, the shorter guy in the Pantsir Armour didn't seem to approve of that.

Behind them, someone piling some dead Ashwood on the concrete and took a small jerrycan from his backpack to pour some fuel over it. When he flicked a match into the campfire, the Kerosine ignited immediately and the fire got going.

"The Ecologists told us that a Psy-Storm might hit soon.", one of them said. "The trip back to the warehouses might be unsafe, we should stay here. There is an old bunker by the bridge where we can take shelter."

The fire quickly chased the darkness back into the distance, lighting the concrete-shelter with glowing warmth.  
As they all sat down around the fire, with two men going off to stand on guard at the Gate, the man in the medium military-armour flipped open the visor of his heavy helmet. He was young, looking almost like a Teenager. His face looked weathered by stress and life in the Zone, but he still appeared younger than Florian. He couldn't have been older than 24.  
"Aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper?", Dafna asked dryly. It wasn't actually that funny of a jab, but the way the boy tilted his head in naive confusion made one of his friends suddenly burst out in an infectious giggle that spread around the campfire and broke the tension.

"Probably.", he agreed. "I'm Artyom."

"Apollo.", Florian replied. He'd have preferred to give his real one to be polite, but there were good reasons people went by codenames in this place.  
"I'm Dafna.", his friend told the Dutiers. The boy nodded, but the others did not seem to be particularly interested in socialising. They all had an air of professionalism about them, dour and cold. Though, it was not entirely clear if it was because of the Factions they were part of.  
The boy looked at both of them curiously after he heard the names. He seemed about to ask something, but held it back.

While Dafna was pulling a protein-bar from her pockets and Apollo warmed a half eaten Diet-Sausage next to the little fire, Artyom leaned back against the concrete wall and absent-mindedly chewed on a bullet-casing he wore as a necklace. They were all a little tired and needed a quick break before going on. It was safest to do that while keeping an eye on the Gate.  
Florian was a little unsettled by the boy. He looked old enough to fight, but not old enough that he should be here. It was a testament to how broken the World was out there, if even Teens were now coming to the Zone to earn some Money. Usually it was old men who came here to burn away the years they had left of their lives in exchange for cash to make sure their families were going to have a future. There were some rich adventurers as well, but the majority were just poor and desperate.

Their little pause dragged on for a while and they all quickly warmed up some food. Svoboda gave it's recruits a decent selection of wares out of Supermarkets around the Zone. Nuts, Raisins, Canned Vegetables, Chips and even Chocolate. Loads of little things that their Smugglers brought into the Zone, one backpack at a time.  
Duty's food was very different. It seemed each of them had a proper MRE in their kit, but Apollo noted that one of their senior Troopers quietly intervened when one of the others wanted to pull it out. Florian wasn't sure what they were trying to hide, but it was a bit of an open secret of where Duty got it's supplies. He wasn't going to press them on something everyone knew.  
Instead of getting out a full meal, most of them just quickly warmed up metal-cans with some disgusting Mutant-Stew. Some of the Hippies in Svoboda's ranks swore that with the right ingredients and preperation Mutant-Meat was great, even spiritually potent, but Florian could not take these fools seriously. Nobody who intended to come out of the Zone to grow old would eat meat that was this irradiated... but then again, nobody who valued their life came into the Zone in the first place.  
His eyes briefly returned to Dafna, wondering what brough her here. He knew that few of the possibilities were pretty. It almost made him wish she was one of those idealistic Hippie-Clowns, at least they had some optimism when coming to this place. He got that same vibe from her and it helped him keep his head high in this place. If she was as desperate, sad and jaded as himself, Florian did not want to know.

While they all ate, Apollo had to radio back to Lukash after a while, to make sure they were not doing anything wrong by deviating from their patrol-plan. When he asked, the man laughed. _"I'm not complaining as long as the Area is clear. Come back when you want to."_  
Florian remembered the stories from his Grandpa, how life in the Army used to be in his Days. This kind of reply would have been unthinkable for him. Duty very much took after it's military heritage, but Freedom lived by it's name. They were not an Army, just a bunch of Loners working for the common good and their own benefit at once. Lukash could give them orders, but at the end of the day their command-structure was built around an implicit recognition that their members were often too independent-minded to act as a formal fighting-force.  
Really, the only thing making them such an effective and serious force in the Zone was the amount of Money they were pooling, the modern guns they were importing and the amount of men in their Ranks. They could draw on a much larger pool of recruits than the authoritarian douchebags in Duty.

"Why did you come up the road?", Artyom asked after he finished the last spoon of his Rat-Stew. "According to the briefing, the Guard-Shift was supposed to happen at the Gate or at the Farm."

"We wanted to get an Artifact.", Apollo responded. "Did you see anything weird in the Trees?"  
The black-haired boy nodded. "They are weird, aren't they?", he agreed, his expression thoughtful as he glanced to their right, where the Red Forest loomed dark and menacing in the night. There was some Moonlight shining down and outlining the canopies with a subtle, ghostly halo. After a moment, he pulled out a Notebook and a pencil from his pocket.  
As Artyom began to draw a spontanious sketch of what he was seeing, Florian wondered if he should have phrased his question differently, but decided not to follow up on it. Interrupting an Artist's stream of consciousness was impolite.

The walking tank in the Nosorog Exoskeleton did understand the question, though, and he did not seem amused.  
"All you green boys have on your mind are the Zone's forbidden Fruits.", he scoffed. "Don't play with fire, _kid_." That last word got stressed with some venom.  
Florian glanced over at Artjom for a moment, wondering who in the group was in command. The boy struck him as a little awkward and quiet, but he looked like the extroverted one because he was the only who wasn't giving them the cold shoulder on purpose. The Freedomer did not dignify the old crank with an answer, though.

"We've been guarding the Barrier for years.", Dafna protested proudly, meeting the man's gaze with her jade eyes gleaming from the fire nearby. The orange glow made her red hair look like a deep, dark cherrywood. She gestured at a satchel on the belt of his night-black armour, one of the usual soviet surplus models that were common in the zone. When Apollo looked closely, it was internally clad with a plastic-bag to make sure the blood from the rodent-heads inside did not seep into the cloth too much.  
"And what are you doing? You have 'Comrade' Lukashenko giving you **Exoskeletons** and you use them to hunt fucking _Rats_?"

"Keeping the Zone safe! Green Boys... and girls... like you die like flies in deep Winter. Everyone who's here for the Money fucks right off once the snow comes with Monolith on it's heels. 'Not enough Food', or 'It's too cold', people whine. Every year, you Anarchists just cozy up in your Fortress while Rangers starve and die out there in the Wild to make sure Monolith won't get south.", the old man growled. His voice sounded raspy enough that Apollo might have guessed he was sixty, but when he took off his helmet the face couldn't have been older than 30. The man wasn't old, but the remnants of his hair were falling out and his skin had something sickly to it. Radiation did horrible things to the body and while the man didn't look entirely dead, he seemed to have one foot in the grave already.  
Apollo glanced away from him. He knew that he might as well end up like that if he stayed too long in this place and did not want the sight of that face haunting him.

Dafna was going to eagerly charge into that word-battle, but Artyom tensely interjected something.  
"These are not _Rats_. They're Tushkanos.", he told them and his voice was quite serious. There was something haunted in his dark eyes as he said the word. Something pained, something that put him on edge. He did not elaborate, but one of the other men took over for him to finally redirect the coversation into a more productive place.  
"Listen, I'm not sure if you folk have figured that out yet, but Tushkanos are _not natural_. They aren't a species that just evolved here. We don't know how they happened, but now they're here and we have to make sure they don't get out of control. Rats are annoying, but they're scavengers. Tushkanos *hunt* and they can form way bigger packs than Wolves.", he explained. His tone was not confrontational, the man seemed to have a genuine interest in the topic. It was curious that he knew details like this. Did he work for the Ecologists before?

Dafna did and listened carefully to the explaination. "Are they actually packs, though? Wolfpacks are formed through generational dynamics and there is a limit to how big they can get before things become too complex to be sustainable.", she added, her anger blown to the air.

"That's the big question, isn't it? These swarms get way too big and we need to burn their nests before they get out of control. When the first villages started getting eaten was when the Military started taking containment seriously."

"Where did you plan to look for that Artifact?", Artyom suddenly interjected, eager to get away from that topic. His voice was clearly on edge.

Apollo obliged the boy. "A Friend told me that he saw a Fireball inside a hollowed-out Oak, somewhere in the dead side of the Forest.", he explained.  
The man in the Nosorog asked: "Was your Comrade sure that the tree wasn't just on fire?"  
"Must have been a rather cold fire if there were no flames, just the glow.", he replied dryly, then tapped at the crudely drawn sun on his helmet and asked. "The Artifact looks roughly like that, have you seen it anywhere?"  
The man's colourless eyes glared back humorlessly, but the others did get a giggle out of it and the stoic silence from the man made it funnier.

"If you want to get it, we can wait here.", Artjom offered. "Just be careful. And use a lead-container. You don't want 22 millisievert in your backback."

Dafna nodded, but with a slight edge to it this time. "Don't worry, boy. We're not Rookies.", she assured with a smile and stood up. "We're not going in deep, we'll be back soon."

Apollo nodded. As he thought about that... "This is a decent chokepoint.", he observed. "Maybe we should speak to Lukash, try to make this a permanent outpost. This would be the easiest way to bypass the Barrier."

The old man shook his head. "Luskash tried before. Monolith attacked this place in force every time. It can't be held permanently, the Supply-Line is too long."

Artjom nodded at that. "We've scouted this out for years, this is the safest road to Limansk. Monolith is protective of that place and anyone who establishes an outpost here will meet anyone trying to get North. It's a bait for trouble."  
Limansk. It was a name not too many people knew about, but it had quite a lot of notoriety...  
If you went by printed maps, it straight up did not exist. Whoever conspired to make it so, did not predict that commercial sattelite imagery would eventually find it. That alone captured people's imagination, mainly people who hoped to find a fresh place to harvest the copper-wire.  
But then, exactly around the time when Blowouts started becoming a regular part of the Zone's anomalous "weather", Clear Sky assaulted the place in force. Back then, there had been a scramble for untouched territories going on and the secretive bastards in white charged ahead. They went into Limansk as an _Army_... and were never seen again. Survivors rebuilt Clear Sky and they still stalked the woods of the Zone, but there was a dead army of them that was never found.

What had they found? What were they looking for? Who cared? Treasure-Hunters did. Even if the Zone's deeper secrets were rather uninteresting to some, understanding them was a way to exploit it's riches better. And Limansk was rumored to have loads of them. And in more distorted versions of the Tales that were told down south, the town was rumored to more directly spawn rare types of Artifacts that were otherwise only found in Pripyat proper.

Dafna shrugged and nodded. She stood up and quickly checked the chamber of her rifle to remember if she had loaded it earlier. Apollo followed his friend, ready to search for that Fireball, but one of the Duty soldiers suddenly said: "We'll help you get it."

Florian looked back at the squad in their black-red armour in surprise. "Really?"  
Artyom immediately stepped up proudly with his rifle in hand. "Of course!"  
The dead man in the Exoskeleton turned around with his PKP casually held in one hand, his steps subtly shaking the ground. "I think you Anarchists are all cunts, but at least you're not Monolith.", he croaked. "I'd rather have more bodies on the barrier. You might make good cover if we stack your corpses high enough."

Dafna laughed darkly. "Likewise.", she replied with a sassy smile and led the way. The whole group walked up towards the gate of the ominously thin looking wall that contained whatever Mutants the Red Forest held.

Duty trained it's soldiers well down in Rostok and it showed. They moved like soldiers did in the movies, pointing their guns in all the right spots and moving in a highly coordinated manner.  
Florian wished he'd have tried to get some kind of preperation like that before coming into the Zone. Sadly, almost every group that offered that type of _training_ in Poland were Neo-Nazis. It was one of the reasons he was weary of Duty. They had connections and it was probably to horrible people. If not the Nazis, then to one of the unscrupulous states around the Zone that were seeking to exploit it's miracles. That was what made Apollo actually sympathise with Svoboda's ideological stance. Everyone around the Zone were cynical Bastards looking to start a magical Arms Race. If the Zone was going to be exploited, it might as well be done by the common man and Svoboda was going to try it's best to hinder the effords of foreigners to do the same.

"Stack up on the Gate, prepare for breach.", the Leader of the group ordered. Surprisingly, the man actually in charge was the Rat-Nerd.  
"I'll scout ahead first.", Dafna interjected and slung her rifle over her back. She sprinted up to a tall oak tree and with her momentum, she managed to scramble up the bark like a squirrel until gravity started pulling and she had to hold on tight again.  
Once she reached the upper branches, she needed to pause for a moment. She briefly lit her headlamp to illuminate her hand and wrap a bandage around the cut, while silently mouthing curses in yiddish.  
"Goddamn Rookie.", the half-dead man groaned in exhausted annoyance.  
One of the others in the squad asked: "Who wants to bet who gets her first, Snipers or a Chimera?"  
Artyom and Apollo slapped him on the neck simultaniously, which shut that down immediately.

Dafna wasn't dumb, the moment she was done pouring some vodka from her flask over the wound, she immediately extinguished the headlamp.  
It was hard to see what she was doing in the darkness, but she seemed to be using her rifle's crudely mounted military-scope to scout ahead as best as she could. When she seemed reasonably sure nothing was out there, she gave a thumbs up.  
Artjom removed the bike-locker chain they had wrapped around the gate's bars and pushed it open. The dead man in the Exoskeleton took point with his maschinegun shouldered like a rifle.  
Everyone else followed like black wraiths, dashing for the Trees. When Apollo reached his own chosen cover, he had too much momentum and he was met with a little shower of dead bark. He was glad he had his helmet on, it was difficult already to keep his blonde hair clean. Maybe it was vain to spend spare money on shampoo, but every Stalker had _something_ they indulged in.

They sweeped through the forest further, but Duty was very careful and slow. Eventually, Apollo got impatient. He didn't want to stay here for too long, he could just _feel_ that this forest did not want him here. But he needed the money.

His hands were shaking as he tried to listen closely to the forest around him, trying not to step into an Anomaly. Or get caught by the black fog that some people claimed to have seen. He was afraid, deeply and viscerally. His biggest comfort was that Dafna's eyes were on his back and he was not going to be a coward in front of her.  
Occasionally, he looked around to remain aware of where the others were and it seemed like he was leaving the Dutyers behind. His friend was catching up, though. "We're going too deep.", she warned once they were going side by side.

Apollo silently nodded. They might as well go get what they came for now, otherwise it wouldn't be worth the radiation they were exposing themselves to.  
Eventually, they saw a faint orange glow. There were telltale signs of fire-anomalies around them. Barren patches of ground, burned trees and general devastation. However, there was life sprouting around them again, indicating that the Burners had fizzled out. But eventually, they found it. A tree that was deader than the others. It had the same blood-red leaves on it's remaining upper branches, but it's main truck was hollowed out by fire and white ash covered it. The whole thing looked both fragile, yet impressively sturdy. And from inside the hollow trunk, the orange glow of a Fireball was coming. It looked like the ash-tree had a fiery heart!

"There!", Dafna told him, her voice showing sudden exitement. "Just be careful."  
Apollo nodded. He put down his backpack and got out that obnoxiously heavy lead-box that Veterans always advised him to carry around. Most Artifacts were radioactive, or had loads of other nasty effects that went along with the useful ones. There were ways to harness their power without exposure to radiation, but it required a sophisticated technical frame around them. If a Rookie found an Artifact, the only thing you could do was stuff it into a lead-box before it melted your hand and sell it to a trader. And then spend half of the profit on Anti-Radiation Meds. Sometimes Apollo wondered if one day he could find something to take home for himself, for his **family**. Who knew, possibly even to enable his Grandparents to live longer, he felt he owed it to them. He knew he'd never reach the fabled Wish Granter within the Sarcophagus, but a man could dream...

"Dafna... Uhm... Can I invite you for a Coffee in the morning?", he suddenly asked. His fear of these woods suddenly made him find the courage to just go for it  
Her green eyes looked at him with amusement and compassion.  
"Do you have Condoms?", she asked, nonchalantly.  
For a moment, Florian's brain just kinda froze. He stared at her, utterly dumbstruck.  
Dafna smiled and raised her rifle to scan for targets, covering him. "Come on, we need to hurry.", she urged.

Emboldened, Apollo approached the tree with a knife and the lead-box in his hands. In the gentle glow, the blade of the bayonet shivered red-hot.  
He felt a sense of dread, knowing that this magic was bombarding his body with 22 milisievert of ionising radiation. It was like a little Sun and he feared that it might be too hot for him to get into the box.  
Then, with a leap of motion, he ran up to the tree and thrust the blade inside. The ash parted like butter and he used the knife like a little crowbar, tearing out the tree's fiery heart without touching it and burning his hand. However, he felt no heat from it. Actually, it had a rather cold aura. When he touched it, his hand was not burned. It was being poked full of holes on an atomic level, but the Fireball was like a big, cold ember he caught.

He was about to triumphantly put it into his lead-box when the Forest exploded in noise!  
Gunfire was all around him, ripping up the dead trees like little thunderbolts and lighting up the night with muzzle-flashes that looked like tiny suns in the darkness.

Florian felt like a fool and he ran in panic, showered by a cloud of white ash when a bullet struck the dead tree.  
He cradled the Fireball like his life depended on it, determined to run with his bounty. Then, he felt the sharp, hot pierce in his back.  
With a scream, he fell to the ground and in the distance he heard Dafna scream in rage. Duty was tearing into the forest with saturation-fire, trying to flush out the Monolith ambush. They were too far away to help, though, and Dafna was sticking to cover as the protectors of this forest tried to kill her too.

As he lay there in the dirt, Florian felt like the wounds were sharp icicles inside of him, as the afterglow of the hit faded and the cold air mingled with his blood.  
He felt dilirious, confused. His hands reached for his pistol, but he could barely pull it from it's holster. Another bullet hit him in the back, lodging in his shoulder.  
Screaming, he rolled over. His legs were furiously kicking at the ground in rage, as if he could propel himself to safety that way. But his strenght left quickly.  
In his head, he refused to accept it was over. He raged against the cold inside his body, trying to get back to Dafna and run.  
But as the firestorm around him went on, he felt a droning pain in his head. An ominous presence.  
_Oh God..._  
He had felt it before, at the Barrier. That invasive droning of the Brain-Scorcher. It felt like his mind was shaking and he could taste the copper of blood on his lips.  
**"AHHHHHH!"**  
Something was inside, him and he felt the pain in his head. His ears were ringing sharply and it felt like a blade was slowly going inside his mind.

He remembered how he had once received anesthesia before an Operation. Death came the same way. Rapid, faster than he could process and utterly uncaring for his attempts to resist.  
As he went to sleep, the last thing he felt was his body twitching.

_And then..._


End file.
